


Muramasa's Task

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Parenting, Canonical Character Death, Character Development, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 23:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Daken struggles to let go. Muramasa’s task of letting go of his “Fears, desires and inadequacies” is not nearly as easily done as it appears. Above all Daken has to face the fact that he indeed had some kind of emotional attachment to his Father. One that was more than just anger and hatred.Or: The part that we did not see on panel in All New Wolverine #28.





	Muramasa's Task

“Is it true?”

Daken paused and looked over his shoulder at Laura. Her voice had drawn him out of his continuously futile attempts at doing what Muramasa asked. “Is what true?”

“Do you feel guilty for what happened to Logan? For not stopping it?” Laura settled down on the floor next to her brother and ignored the way he was glaring. Someone had to ask. They did not have the time for handling this delicately. Laura had given him space for a whole day to try and do as asked on his own terms. But they were being hunted and they did not know when their enemy would catch back up to them.

“Why does that even matter? It’s nobody's business what I might be feeling.”

“Under normal circumstances I would agree but this is different, Daken. We are being hunted and my - our family is in danger. Gabby is in danger and she is not grasping the full magnitude of the situation.”

That made Daken look away and stare out into the water of the pond once more. Family. A word with a complex meaning that changed depending on each individual. To him it used to mean nothing. He had adoptive parents who treated him well but his very nature had not allowed them to bond with him on their own terms. Daken had wanted to be loved, so he unknowingly manipulated them into loving him. That was not love. It was nothing. 

Something had changed the day he met Laura though. There was something about her that almost instantly got under his skin. Daken had tried to ignore it. Had used her, had allowed her to be tortured even. And yet, somehow, they bonded despite his attempts at making her want to be as far away from him as possible.

Family meant something to him now. Daken was still in the phase of figuring out what exactly it meant but he knew that he cared for Laura. And for Gabby. They meant something to him and he wanted to keep them safe. Make sure that no one and nothing hurt them. 

Given their lives this was obviously not a real option but emotions did not work on logic. That was the problem with them. They were messy and complicated and if he could not put them into neatly labeled boxes he was never quite sure what to do with them.

Laura had asked but she was not pushing him for an answer. Still, Daken felt that minutes of silence were long enough given that he only had one real answer, “I don’t know.”

“I hate him.” He continued, “I can’t forgive him for what he did. I don’t want to forgive him. He drowned me in a puddle and probably called it mercy in his head.” The words just happened and Daken found it impossible to stop talking now that he had started.

“I heard he lost his healing factor and my first thought was to use the opportunity. Pay him back for everything. It was pride that kept me from going there. Where would the satisfaction be in killing him while he is down and out already? I decided to stay away instead, see who would get the kill in.”

There was a short pause as he contemplated his words and Laura did not interrupt him. She was good at that. At letting people talk and not making it feel like she was bored of listening.

“I guess I just never expected it to actually happen. Or that it would happen in the way it did. That was not the sort of death I thought Logan would die. Suffocating inside a cocoon of Adamantium, skin boiled off and hell knows what else. I expected him to go out kicking and screaming, fighting until his last breath in some sort of huge battle.”

Laura nodded silently, she had struggled with the how herself for a long time. In the end she thought that maybe this had been a more fitting ending for her adoptive father than most people understood. Logan had changed. He was never going to not be Wolverine but he was running a school and trying his best helping the next generation of Mutants to grow up with less violence and pain than the one before. Laura was not sure how successful that had been but she could appreciate his efforts.

“One moment he was there and then … he wasn’t.” Daken gritted his teeth, “It pissed me off that he actually just went and died on us. It was like, why couldn’t he stay in his little school and just be a teacher? Why did he have to keep trying to be a hero? Like he could adapt his fighting style to having no healing factor after all that time of just running in head first.”

“I know someone else who lost their healing factor and decided to do something very similar not that long ago. They were even short an arm and an eye.”

“Shut up. I am not as big of a fool as him. I fight different.”

“Not that different.”

They looked at each other and eventually Daken caved and shrugged, “Fine, so maybe I get why he did what he did. Except for the heroing part. But yeah, fighting is in all of our nature. Him, you, me. Even Gabby. It’s not something that can be switched off I suppose.”

Laura gently tried to refocus the conversation back on her initial question, “So it left you angry that he died? And that’s it?”

“No.” He shook his head, “There was anger and frustration at first but … after a while it settled in that he is gone, you know? Gone. I still don’t know if I am relieved he isn’t there anymore or if I -” Daken stopped talking and bit his tongue. This was not the kind of conversation he was wanting to have.

“If? If what, Daken? We need to figure this out. You need to. Or else all of us are going to die.”

“If I was sad he was gone. And then I started wondering if I should have been there. If it would have made a difference. If maybe we could have managed to talk for more than two minutes without fighting if I had at least stopped by to see him at some point.”

“So you do feel guilty.” Laura nodded, “I was not there either. I have been through this with myself. The anger, the denial, the guilt. You need to let it go, Daken. He is dead and despite the less than ideal relationship between the both of you, I believe he wouldn’t have wanted you to carry that guilt around. That was not who he was.”

Daken said nothing. Laura was right but he had admitted enough for one day.

“Let your guilt rest like he is resting now. You were not responsible for him or his death.” Laura stood up and briefly put a hand on Daken’s shoulder before leaving him alone to meditate again. Maybe that little talk would help. At least she could say she had tried.


End file.
